Canada Research Chair Team Members

CRC Team 2011

Matthew cropped Matthew Whitehead, Michael Johnson, C. J. Davis, Dan McClellan, Jeff Spence, Kyung Baek, Loriane Frewing (Faculty Assistant)

Matt Whitehead joined the CRC team from Northwest Baptist Seminary in Tacoma, WA. He worked with Dr. Flint on the digitization of the authoritative Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series and on the revolutionary Oxford Hebrew Bible project. Following the completion of his thesis, Matt plans to pursue PhD studies in the Qumran field. He lives in Bellingham, WA with his wife and daughter.

Kyle Biersdorf has also been assisting,but is not pictured. (Photos by Jeff Spence and Loriane Frewing)

KYUNG S. BAEK

Ph.D. student at the University of Manchester, writing a dissertation on Ancient Jewish Exegesis in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel of Matthew; Sessional instructor in Religious Studies at Trinity Western University; and a Senior Researcher for the Canada Research Chair in Dead Sea Scrolls Studies.

Research interests are Early Jewish and Christian Scriptures; Biblical Exegesis and Interpretation; Dead Sea Scrolls, Gospels, and the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament.

Current Projects:Celebrating the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Canadian Collection, Bible at Qumran Series, Conversion of Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls Project

CRC Team 2007-2010

John Screnock, Jeremy Brown, Peter Flint, Margaret Hebron, Andrew Perrin, Kyung Baek,
Loriane Frewing (Faculty Assistant), and Kwan Byung (Andrew) Chae.

CRC Team 2007-09

From left to right:
Kwan Byung (Andrew) Chae, Andrew Perrin, Jeremy Brown, Kyung Baek, John Screnock, Peter Flint,
Chelica Hiltunen, Margaret Hebron, Loriane Frewing (Faculty Assistant).
(Photo by: Mike Rathjen)

Past Team Members

Kyung Baek is a graduate student in the M.A. in Biblical Studies program at Trinity Western University. Having worked closely with the preparation of digital photographic images for Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXII he presented a paper entitled "The Photographs of 1QIsaiaha and 1QIsaiahb: Collections, Techniques and DJD XXXII" at the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies annual meeting in 2007. He is presently co-editing The Dead Sea Scrolls at 60 with Dr. Peter Flint and Dr. Jean Duhaime and will contribute a paper to the volume entitled "The Photographic Collections of the Isaiah Scrolls from Cave One."  His research interests include Second Temple Judaism, Christian Origins and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Margaret Hebron has been a research assistant for Dr. Flint since the fall of 2007, when she entered the M.A. in Biblical Studies program at Trinity Western University. She has been researching textual criticism in the Psalms for the Oxford Hebrew Bible Project, as well as assisting Dr. Flint in editing the Proverbs volume of the Oxford Hebrew Bible by Dr. Michael V. Fox (University of Wisconsin). 

Margaret's main research interests are literary interpretation and Hebrew narrative. She is currently working on her thesis entitled "Entertaining Yahweh: Genesis 18:1-15 in Light of Its Original Context, Subsequent Tradition, and Influence on the Book of Tobit." 

Margaret has presented papers at two academic conferences, the Pacific Northwest Regional SBL in Tacoma (2009) and the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies in Ottawa (2009). She has also published three book reviews in Bible Study Magazine.

John Screnock (B.A. in Biblical and Theological Studies, Northwestern College,summa cum laude) is completing his M.A. in Biblical Studies at Trinity Western University. As a research assistant for the Canada Research Chair, he is working on the second edition of The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible. He has also worked on the Cave One Isaiah Scrolls for Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXII and Psalms for the Oxford Hebrew Bible

John plans to defend his thesis, "Word Order in the War Scroll (1QM) and Its Implications for Interpretation," in the spring of 2010. Besides Hebrew Linguistics and Dead Sea Scrolls Studies, he is interested in Textual Criticism, Septuagint Studies, and philological aspects of the translation, transmission, and reception of religious texts during the Second Temple period. 

He has studied under Peter Flint, Martin Abegg, and Michael Wise, and spent a semester studying at Oxford University. During two teaching assistantships John has gained experience in classroom teaching and online teaching. He has presented at numerous student symposiums and colloquia, and has published in Bible Study Magazine (2009). In May 2010 he presented his paper, "Word Order of Verbal Clauses in the War Scroll            (1QM)," at the annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Society of Biblical Literature.

Kwan Byung (Andrew) holds a M.Div from Seoul Theological University in South Korea and is currently a graduate student in the M.A. in Biblical Studies program at Trinity Western University. In May 2006 he joined the Canada Research Chair in the Dead Sea Scrolls Studies team to assist in preparation of Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXII. His interest in the Scrolls is their value as a textual witness to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in the Second Temple period. He is currently engaged in thesis research entitled “ Textual Variants for the Book of Numbers in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Searching for the Standardized Text” .

Andrew B. Perrin graduated with an M.A. in Biblical Studies at Trinity Western University (2009). He was awarded a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship for his thesis entitled, Between Scripture and Interpretation: Methods of Scribal Intervention and Key Textual Variants in 4QReworked Pentateuch (abstract). While a member of the Canada Research Chair Team, Andrew was the lead investigator of the Dead Sea Scrolls Variants Project, assisted in preparing 1QIsa,b for publication in DJD 32, and was the webmaster of DeadSeaScrolls.org. 

Currently Andrew is pursuing a PhD in Early Judaism and Christianity at McMaster University, for which he was awarded a SSHRC Doctoral Scholarship as well as the Harry Lyman Hooker Senior Fellowship. 

He has published articles in McMaster Journal of Theology and MinistryReligious Studies and Theology, as well as reviews in the Toronto Journal of Theology, and Reviews in Religion & Theology. Andrew is also a columnist for Bible Study Magazine.

Jeremy Brown is a graduate student in the M.A. in Biblical Studies program at Trinity Western University and has been a part of the Canada Research Chair in Dead Sea Scrolls Studies team since September 2008. Jeremy has assisted in editing the orthography lists of 1QIsaa for Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXII. His interest in the Scrolls pertains to scribal practices and manuscript preparation in ancient communities. Jeremy completed an M.A. in Theological Studies from George Fox Evangelical Seminary in December 2008, his thesis was entitled "Moving towards Illumination?: the Development of Method and Rhetoric in the American School of Archaeologists".

Ryan Roberts graduated from Baptist Bible College, Clarks Summit, PA, summa cum laude in 2002. He then graduated from Trinity Western University, Langley, BC, in 2005, with an M.A. in Biblical Studies and an emphasis on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He wrote his Masters thesis on the textual variants in the Deuteronomy Dead Sea Scrolls. As a research assistant for the Canada Research Chair, he worked on copy-editing, corresponding with authors, and providing an index for The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception. 

Ryan has spent the last five years at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) studying in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. He completed his M.A. in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations in 2008 and is currently working toward a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitic Languages. His dissertation focuses on earthquake imagery in Ancient Near Eastern texts and archaeoseismology of the 760 BCE earthquake in the book of Amos.